Pac-12 TV Network: News, notes and musings

The ACC and Big 12 are in the process of finalizing new TV contracts that add context to the Pac-12′s $3 billion partnership with ESPN and Fox, which kicks in this summer.

The ACC deal reportedly breaks down to $17.1 million per year per school — in a basketball league — while the Big 12 will average $20 million/school/year, according to the SportsBusiness Daily.

That puts the Big 12, which is off life support yet again, just behind the Pac-12 and its $20.8 million/school/year deal.

(And when the SEC signs a new contract in the coming months, in the aftermath of its expansion, the payout will far surpass all others.)

As noted last summer, when the Pac-12′s partnership with ESPN and Fox was being hailed as a landmark/breakthrough/stroke-of-genius deal:

Commissioner Larry Scott and his advisers did a marvelous job with the TV negotiations, and their timing was ideal (a sizzling market for live sports).

Both things were equally true.

In my mind, Scott’s true masterstroke was collecting the $3 billion while retaining the rights to 35 football games per year.

Those games, in turn, provided the foundation — in the form of leverage with distributors – for the creation of the Pac-12 Network.

The P12Net, in turn, should funnel several million additional dollars per year to each school when it get fully ramped.

To the TV news …

By now many readers no doubt are aware that the Pac-12 Network — and by that I mean the national and six regional networks — has hired Ronnie Lott, Rick Neuheisel and Summer Sanders as on-air talent.

In coming months, the league will hire another dozen or so broadcasters, but the majority of talent appearing on the P12Net will come from partners ESPN and Fox.

During a press conference Wednesday, Sanders talked about increased visibility for the league’s top-tier Olympic sports created by the P12Net.

But exactly how much visibility?

Will every Stanford swim meet be broadcast by the P12Net/Bay Area? Will every Oregon track meet be shown by Pac12Net/Ore?

Here’s what we know about the programming breakdown:

350 events will be shown across the national network and the six regionals, including 35 football games and 100+ men’s basketball games — in other words, all those (from both sports) not shown on ESPN or Fox.

There will also be several dozen women’s basketball games and Olympic sports events shown throughout the P12Net .

In addition, each regional network will show dozens of Olympic sports events specific to the local teams. The exact number hasn’t been announced because the conference is in the process of finalizing its programming grid.

I know what we’ll see Thursday at 5 p.m. I’m curious about what we’ll see Tuesday at 10 p.m. (and 10 a.m., for that matter).

No doubt, the standard Olympic sports schedule will be altered. We’ll have games on unusual days at unusual times — there’s simply no other way to reconcile maximum exposure for soccer, as an example, with the football schedule.

At the same time, the conference will have to fill dozens of hours per week with studio shows, replays and archival material.

There’s a pretty good chance we’ll see replays of the ’11 Stanford-USC and Oregon-USC football games during the opening week of the season (perhaps several times each).

Fortunately, specifics should begin flowing in mid-June, following two key events:

The semi-annual gathering of Pac-12 presidents and chancellors, and the football broadcast selections by ESPN and Fox.

What is ESPN’s motivation to throw money at the SEC? They already have them under contract for another decade and the league is not in danger of losing members, so they have no reason to not just increase the payment by enough to continue the exact same per team payout. If the SEC does not like it, tell them to pound sand.

alchemist

Mephistopheles:

Lowballing the SEC is a great way to send them running to someone else once the current deal does eventually expire, or to entice them into creating their own conference network with the additional inventory resulting from the extra games they got from adding Missouri and A&M.

Mephistopheles

The SEC would not run from ESPN when their contract expires. They love having the network shill relentlessly for them too much.

I’d also love to see the SEC try to start a network with 8 or so bottom of the bottom of the barrel conference games. I suppose they could get carriers in Tennessee (for Vandy), Mississippi, and Kentucky to carry it as their football games would likely be the ones most frequently on the network, but it would be a tough sell in any of the other states as their games would never fall that low in the selection order. Like the NFL with its network, the SEC would be better off just selling the games to a television carrier because they have a lot more value that way.

bama mama

boring……….

Mephistopheles

My quick internet search told me that the SEC is under contract for 12 more years and each team earns approximately $17 million per year.

To bump that up to the $30 million that SEC fans think their schools “deserve” would cost ESPN 2.184 billion more dollars over the life of the deal (12 years X 14 schools X 13 million per)

I’ve even seen some SEC fans think their schools should get $40 million per school per year. That would cost ESPN 3.864 more dollars over the life of the deal.

I understand that the SEC might be angry and try to leave the network once the deal is up, but do you really think ESPN should spend almost 2 billion dollars simply to reduce that possibility?

Bumping the payout of the ACC is a very different situation in that the league is under threat of losing members to other conferences (Big 12, SEC, Big 10) which would cause ESPN to lose a product they have and like (a conference willing to take terrible start times for games and one that provides a quality basketball product which provides content if not necessarily the big money).

Pyperkub

The SEC may well be able to abrogate the contract based on the expansion to 14 teams. Also realize that ESPN is only the 2nd-tier carrier for the SEC – CBS still has first choice, AFAIK.

NorthwestGuy

Jon – Any new info or even semi-founded rumors on the Pac12 situation with the dish providers?

Tom McNamara

Mephistopheles–

The SEC is feeling the bite of its old “parity” argument against the PAC 12 and others in the past.

The SEC tried to say that because it had a dominant group of teams always at the top in football that it was indicative of quality more than the PAC where almost any school seemed to be able to win a sport year in and year out.

Now, that’s come back to haunt them because Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and A & M might be worth $30 million individually, but the Mississippi schools, Vanderbilt, South Carolina… etc… are not. Add to the mix that the PAC 12 footprint are in larger media markets with no other AQ competition and you see how Scott pulled it off.

Mephistopheles

@Pyperkub: It has been reported that ESPN’s contract with the SEC only requires them increase the value of the contract so that the prorated payment is equal to before. There is absolutely zero contractual basis for them to just throw the contract out the window. That means the SEC has zero leverage.

I know CBS has the rights to the SEC’s 1st tier games, but I’m not sure how that is relevant. Adding Texas A&M and Missouri absolutely does not increase the value of the Tier 1 rights as neither of them are a bigger draw than 5-6 other SEC teams. I’m not sure what the SEC’s contract with CBS says in regards to expansion, but I highly doubt they are suddenly going to get 2-3 times what they did before, especially since CBS’s payment is about 1/3 of ESPN’s to the SEC.

alchemist

Mephistopheles:

The ACC had no leverage either and they got a tidy increase.

John Rhee

With the ACC & SEC generating TV contracts on ESPN Networks, it would wise for the Pac-12 Networks to use ESPN-like box score graphics in football and Olympic sports broadcast so there won’t be lots of East Coast bias on BCS rankings and RPIs for seedings of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Hiring Mike Gleason from the Big East Networks would make sense to possibly replace Barry Tompkins if he’s part of the Pac-12 Network since Barry is getting up in age. Great job on putting together the network for the conference on the West Coast.

Mephistopheles

As I already said, ESPN was willing to increase the ACC’s deal to keep the league alive because they consider it to their benefit for the league to still exist in 5 years. It is basically the same situation in regards to the Big 12 and how ESPN/Fox overpayed for their content to keep the league alive.

ESPN also likes having ACC basketball to fill air time. They especially love Duke/UNC. Now, what happens to that if the money disparity is so massive between the ACC and other leagues that the league dissolves and Duke/UNC join the Big 10? Those ACC basketball games find themselves on the Big 10 network.

I’d say that is a form of gallow’s leverage.

Chris

I want to know about how to get this channel and who is going carry it, if any, beyond those initially announced…

Is there web streaming and at what cost? Is my bandwidth going to support live sporting events? If Directv doesn;t carry the channel what are we going to do?

Florida State admin is out of its mind if the alums, boosters, and donors drive it out of the ACC into the XII.

Mephistopheles

OT, anyone who thinks that the difference in money between the SEC and the other conferences is $1-4 million per year is an idiot. The Pac-12′s $20 million deal is for parts of tier 1 and 2. Once the conference monetizes the rest of T1 and T2 along with all of the T3 rights, expect each school to get at least an additional $10 million which suddenly means the financial gap is not $1-4 million, it is $10-15 million.

And that $10 million dollar is a low ball number. If Kansas’s T3 rights are worth $8 million, then the Pac-12 is going to make a lot lot more, especially since there is the added value of it all being packaged together.

OT

For the amusement of Broncoboss and others, check out the new dress code for Boise State fans in 2012: